:seeya: Good Post !
BBM: I totally agree ... JMO, but in many of the cases I follow where LE keeps everything "secret" from the public, the case is going "cold", or unfortunatley, will probably never be solved ...
And no disrespect for LE here, but what good does it do to "sit on" info -- especially when you have a community of people out there willing to help ? You have to TELL them what you need !
And I too, will be "surprised" IF this car is connected ... if it was that important in helping find Sierra, the info should have blasted on the news immediately ...
All JMO and MOO ...
BBM
What good does it do to sit on information? Plenty!
If you're playing cat and mouse with a perp, the last thing you want is for that perp to have a good idea of what you know or don't know.
You keep some information in the deep dark so that if someone comes out with that information, you've got a suspect (or trail to a suspect).
You give out some information that isn't all that important and let the media go into the usual frenzy over it so that the perp is constantly wondering "is this all they have? Do they have more? Is this all a bluff?" A nervous perp is less likely to commit another crime and more likely to make another mistake.
As for the red car, it has been mentioned that they have over 80 bits of video where it is seen. That means someone or several someones spent hundreds of hours of watching black and white video, correlating what was in one piece of video with other pieces of video and figuring out which car or cars featured enough times to be beyond coincidence.
Each piece of video ends up being viewed many times in order to get information, confirm information, check if the information from Tape A is also on Tape B and on Tape C.
That is not an overnight job. It's not even a one week job. It's more like a multi-week job if you have lots of footage from lots of different cameras.
Sometimes when LE plays it close to the vest, it means they have basically nuthin. Sometimes it means they are thisclose to an arrest and are just locking down all the details they can before making their move.
In all the years I've been following cases, I have never been able to predict at the 2 month mark whether LE is onto someone or not. It takes longer, more like six to eight months, before it becomes clear.